Iraq's Gypsies suffer without Saddam's protection(US troops just watched)

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/4756091.htm

BAGHDAD, July 17 (Reuters) - The piles of dusty rubble, stretching across a couple of square kilometres on the western fringes of Baghdad, suggest the aftermath of a particularly devastating bombing raid in the Iraq war.

But people from surrounding areas proudly declare they demolished this Gypsy neighbourhood with just sledgehammers, shovels and their bare hands after the war was over.

The Gypsies enjoyed protection under Saddam Hussein, their singers and dancers much in demand at high officials' parties. But their neighbours regarded this purpose-built quarter as a centre of crime, prostitution and general immorality.

In the chaos after Saddam's downfall in April, as looting and mob justice took hold across Iraq, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims saw a chance to expel some 2,000 people they despised.

Once they had evicted the Gypsies, people dismantled their homes, carting away doors, window frames and bricks. U.S. troops saw them but did not intervene, locals say. Teenagers now roam the rubble collecting concrete blocks to sell.

more

[Pikku]

1. The Roma are an easy target

In any country. Britain, Romania, Iraq. It doesn't matter.

Think of the kid who always got beat up at school. That's the Gypsies. Feeling a bit down about yourself? Need an instant victory? Beat up a gypsy.

Sorry. This irritates me.

[NNN0LHI]

2. I believe the Nazis went after the Gypsies first too? n/t

[Chovexani]

5. Yes

In Roma circles the Holocaust is referred to as the Porrajmos, which is a Romani word that means "the devouring". Persecution of Roma and Sinti populations within Germany (and Europe in general) happened well before the Nazis came to power. In 1899 police in Bavaria were keeping a central registry of Roma. Here is a link from the D.C. Holocaust museum website with more info:

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/index.php?ModuleId=10005482

Unfortunately the plight of the Roma in Europe has not really changed all that much since the end of the war. Read my post further in the thread for some stark examples.

[Aaron]

3. Pat Robertson on 700 club was saying Bush hurt Iraqi Christians

That when Sadaam was in power he protected them and allowed them to practice their faith but a new government probably wouldn't and that's why going after Sadaam was bad and now the Christians are suffering.

Not the same thing probably, but still interesting that for all the evil of Sadaam he seems to have done at least a marginal job of protecting minorities from what I understand.

[Chovexani]

4. Romani persecution and ethnic cleansing is alive and well

No one gives a shit about the Gypsies. When a Gypsy dies it's because they deserved it, they are filthy liars and thieves, etc. The Porrajmos never ended.

The same thing happened in Kosovo, where the Roma were caught in the middle of the Serb-Albanian conflict. KLA thugs accused Gypsies of collaborating with Serbs to carry out the atrocities and hunted them in the streets like dogs. Many Roma fled, but the refugees had no where to go, they were treated as illegal immigrants and sent back. Here is a CNN story from back during the war:
==========================
Boat crowded with more than 1,000 Yugoslav Gypsies docks in southern Italy
'Albanians are hunting us'

August 1, 1999
Web posted at: 12:38 a.m. EDT (0438 GMT)

BARI, Italy -- A boatload of people who arrived in Italy from Yugoslavia were shuffled into reception centers on Sunday, and their fate remained unknown.

Authorities said 489 of the 1,010 aboard the old tugboat were children. The Gypsies -- called Roma -- are considered illegal immigrants, not refugees, in Italy.

The boat left the coast of Montenegro, Serbia's smaller partner in the Yugoslav federation, on Friday, arriving in Southern Italy on Saturday. Many aboard said they were fleeing revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians.

"The Albanians are hunting us," one man, identified only as Ekrep, was quoted as telling Italy's ANSA news agency. "We have nothing, we have no homes, we have nothing to eat, and above all, we're afraid. Afraid of being killed."
<snip>
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9908/01/italy.gypsies/

This 1998 report is from the European Roma Rights Centre:

Displaced Kosovo Roma

Armed conflicts between the Serbian police and the Kosovo Liberation Army in the Kosovo province of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have greatly affected the local Romani community. Roma began to flee Kosovo in large numbers following the escalation of clashes in early June. Shooting around Romani settlements, expulsion threats by Kosovo Albanians, and Romani houses set on fire were cited by displaced Roma as reasons for their flight. The Kosovo Information Center reported on May 5 that one Rom was killed and another wounded in an attack by the Serbian police on the village of Ponos<caron>evac. Four Roma were kidnapped in Kosovo, according to a July 31 statement of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and their fate was still unknown as of September 3.
<snip>
http://www.errc.org/rr_sum1998/snap_4.shtml

The dirty secret that you won't hear in the media is how violence against Romani people all across Europe has been skyrocketing in the past few years. It is happening in Germany and France but it is really happening with a vengeance in Eastern Europe. The hatred and discrimination there is open and unabashed. Usti nad Labem, a town in the Czech Republic even built a fence around an area where 39 Roma families live:

Czech Republic: A Wall Divides The Country

By Alexandra Poolos


A wall recently erected in the north Bohemian town of Usti nad Labem to separate Czechs from a Romany tenement has sparked international criticism. The European Union has said the Czech Republic must improve its relations between ethnic Czechs and minority Roma before the country can join the EU. RFE/RL correspondent Alexandra Poolos talks to Czechs and Roma in Usti nad Labem about the wall.

Usti nad Labem, 21 October 1999 (RFE/RL) -- A poet has said "good fences make good neighbors." But not when the fences enclose ethnic ghettos. In the sleepy Czech town of Usti nad Labem, a wall separating a Romany apartment building from Czech houses is causing tempers to run hot.

The wall sprang up literally overnight, built last week by more than 100 workers laboring in the night under police guard. Usti nad Labem's city council says it is a local solution to a neighborhood dispute. But the local action has attracted international condemnation. For the Czech Republic, aspiring to membership in the European Union, the wall could not have gone up at a worse time.

<snip>

Czech home owners say they feel trapped. Unable to afford a move away from their bleak landscape, they say their living conditions have worsened since Roma moved into the housing project across the street seven years ago. The Czechs accuse the Roma of being anti-social and say they are fed up with the noises and disorder coming from the tenement.

<snip>

Lachmanova's neighbor, Hana Chladkova, says the wall -- which she calls a fence -- is necessary.

"They would not agree even if there were just a white line -- they would think that was discrimination. Certainly neither they nor we are being discriminated against. But the fact is that the Roma do not know basic rules, nor laws -- they do not know the basics of decent behavior. I'm sorry, we are going to stick to our position. It is the government's duty to take care of us."
<snip>
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/10/F.RU.991021125741.html
(emphasis was mine)

Here is a more recent report on anti-Roma violence from Amnesty International:

Anti-Roma racism in Europe

Karol Sendrei died on 6 July 2001 in Revùca police station, Slovakia, after being beaten while tied to a radiator. He and his two sons had been arrested the previous day after making a complaint against another police officer. Karol Sendrei was a member of the Romani community. A senior Slovak official investigating Karol Sendrei's death said he had asked to be tied to the radiator.

Across Europe, Roma face discrimination. In most countries they are economically deprived and socially marginalized. In many they are abused by the police. Low levels of literacy and qualifications, combined with discrimination in employment, leave the vast majority of Roma unemployed. The resultant poverty leads some Roma into crime, mainly theft. This is used by politicians and the media to stir up even more prejudice against them.

Women and children form a disproportionate number of the victims. Romani youngsters are widely assumed to be inherently criminal, Romani women are often caught up in violent and punitive raids by police on Romani communities.
<snip>

Despite this pattern of persecution, immigration officials from the UK have taken extraordinary, and discriminatory, measures to prevent Czech Roma from seeking asylum in the UK. Based at Prague airport, they have prevented Roma from boarding flights, even though Czech citizens do not need a visa to travel to the UK.

http://web.amnesty.org/web/wire.nsf/February2002/Europe_Roma
(emphasis was mine)

I suggest you check out a powerful photo essay by Stacia Spragg, who lived in Bulgaria for a year while teaching at a local university. This work is about the Chergari Gypsies and can be found here: http://sightphoto.com/sightphoto/story/gypsies/gypsies.html

Sorry for the long post, but this is an issue very close to my heart. I share blood with Roma who fled this kind of persecution. Most people just never hear about it, and it's something that infuriates me.

Opré Roma!